London Anarchist Bookfair 2022

[danny la rouge]

Yup.

An example I always return to is the 1926 general strike. There existed then a working network of trades councils. That structure was adapted to help the coordination of news, food supplies, and much else.

Even when I was active in the anti poll tax movement in the late 80s, the trades councils (although much reduced from their status of the 1920s) were still an important resource. Now, there is no such infrastructure.

There is nominally a trades council in Glasgow. But it’s sewn up by the mainstream unions, has no democratic input and is inaccessible by working class people, and in any case isn’t real. It exists in name only.

Another example is the miners’ welfare clubs. In the 80s you could do the rounds of the miners’ welfare clubs. But now there’s no mines and no welfare clubs. The old miner’s welfare in Stirling (the one I knew best) is now a Waitrose car park. That’s the perfect metaphor, really.

 

[redsquirrel]

Aye. I’ll talk about Glasgow, but I’m sure it’s the same everywhere. One of the things you notice is that every time there’s something on - demo in George Square, picket of the Home Office in Brand Street, A to B march, and so on - it’s the same faces, the same dwindling organisations. The same banners. It’s all seasoned hacks. No muggles. No outside interest.

For a while I thought the YCL in Glasgow was huge by comparison. Then I realised we were probably seeing pretty much the whole of its UK membership each time they turn up. (Well, I realised it with the help of another poster on this thread).

These events are just speaking to the same people. We turn up. We note how few organisation A has put on the street this time. We wander over to activist B and have a chat. The general public are oblivious. The working class is unaffected.

There is not a working class culture any more of mass May Day picnics, discussing politics in the park. But we’re still using the methods of yesteryear. Even online. In fact, I don’t think taking our presence online has broadened our reach at all. It has improved our ability to communicate with each other, but actually we’ve thrown ourselves into a virtual oubliette, and the outside world has no idea we’re in it or that it even exists.



There are breakthrough moments. The anti immigration raids solidarity. Kenmure Street. The new wave of strikes, for which general solidarity seems pretty good. In a small way, the Bookfair I helped organise was actually pretty good at bringing in new faces. But it was hardly a mass movement.

The things that have most impact are the quieter things we tend to get involved in. Individual solidarity work to assist a particular neighbour. Anti library closure campaigning. Networking in one’s community. Community mutual aid WhatsApp groups. Dealing with anti social behaviour. But these don’t tend to see the light of day.

Bang on Danny.

Kill the Bill here was pretty much the same old crowd. A few youngsters but plenty of the old guard.
(Which is not to disrespect the organisers or the anyone attending - the spontaneous march down Leeds roads closing them was great - but it concurs with the above)

 

[smokedout]

This same conversation has been ongoing for 30 years though. You can hardly say that in the days of crusties and Swampy and the road protest scene that anarchism was successfully embedding itself within the working class communities, or later manifestations like RTS and May Day - after which anarchism virtually disappeared from public view until the austerity period began, and even then only gained relevence for a couple for years mostly amongst students. All that's really changed is a generational shift and the people who were accused of being middle class drop out lifestylists are now accusing the younger generations of being middle class pronoun obsessed snowflakes. The truth is the organised working class was defeated in the 80s and has never recovered and anarchism has been in a counter-cultural ghetto ever since, with occassional fleeting moments in the sun but even those never really connected with much of the working class.

The situation is desperate and the relentless sniping doesn't help anyone, it only alienates people and causes resentment, not least because it often comes from people who are barely active themselves anymore. And outside of the anarchist bubble we are all irrelevent - you can shout at the bookfair as much as you want because you're favourite old timer wasn't given centre billing but if you think Lisa Mckenzie or anyone else of that ilk resonates with the working class anymore than someone like Earth First or Palestine Action you're living in a dreamworld. No-one knows, or cares, who the fuck any of these people are.

On the plus side, Don't Pay has resonated, as has some of the work of the independent unions, the bookfair has come back from what seemed like permanent death a few years ago and was as well attended as ever with lots of young people and new faces, we're entering a period of trade union action unlike any seen for decades, people are looking beyond XR and becoming more militant, there is a growing anger amongst the young about housing, shit jobs, the environment and the rise of the right. A period of turmoil looks inevitable, and for anarchism to regain relevance it has to attract the next generation and support them through all the annoying and hopefully cool things they might do. Because a bunch of inactive (mostly) old men whinging about how much better things were in their day just gets people's backs up as does the reluctance to understand the contemporary struggles faced by the young working class who are facing a far more insecure future than we ever did, and possibly know better than us how to resist that.

 

[charlie mowbray]

That really is patronising and so wrong.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm not sure if that was directed at Danny's post or not smokedout?

But I do not think what Danny describes is just oldies complaining. The sort of collective class consciousness that was around even 20 years ago may have been very much weakened from the 45-75 period but to me it seems miles ahead of the present.

Take U75 for an example, 20 years ago most of the politics forum regulars - whether trots, tankies, anarchists or other - organised on the basis of class politics. Now that is a minority view. Or the Ukranian war thread where even the mention of class, of thinking from a materialist perspective, is viewed as some sort of incomprehensible alien language.

I would say that there has been a growth in support of "progressive politics" but cross class progressive politics is not, for me any road, any sort of solution.
TBH I hope I am being just a bit pessimistic after a shitty day at work and you're right, that we are going to see a re-birth and re-building of class politics

 

[TopCat]

I've been critical of how we got from the old bookfair to now and I'd tend to agree about the diminishing links to real world struggles. Having said that I think there was some attempt to relate to things like the cost of living horrors and I'd generally say that the new organisers took this on and it became their thing. It's also hard graft and you do put yourself in the firing line if you organise something like the bookfair, so there's a bit of slack to be cut. I'm probably all over the place then. The much more important point is that the increasing irrelevance to working class lives and struggle is one of the movement, not so much this bookfair. There's stuff going on like the Angry Workers and the rest and I was at the 'Martin and Lisa' meeting, but nobody could see contemporary anarchism in this country/countries as being relevant to where we are at. A point that could also be made about the wider left.

The irrelevance of anarchism to our life today was perhaps the bigger issue for me, just epitomised by the reality of the bookfair. Yes they did a lot of work and well done etc. They ain't to blame.

 

[smokedout]

I'm not sure if that was directed at Danny's post or not smokedout?

But I do not think what Danny describes is just oldies complaining. The sort of collective class consciousness that was around even 20 years ago may have been very much weakened from the 45-75 period but to me it seems miles ahead of the present.

Take U75 for an example, 20 years ago most of the politics forum regulars - whether trots, tankies, anarchists or other - organised on the basis of class politics. Now that is a minority view. Or the Ukranian war thread where even the mention of class, of thinking from a materialist perspective, is viewed as some sort of incomprehensible alien language.

I would say that there has been a growth in support of "progressive politics" but cross class progressive politics is not, for me any road, any sort of solution.
TBH I hope I am being just a bit pessimistic after a shitty day at work and you're right, that we are going to see a re-birth and re-building of class politics

No not aimed at Danny at all, I agree with a lot of what he said. But I don't agree that things were much better 20 years ago despite the changing demographics on urban. 20 years ago much of the mainstream left was focussed on the Iraq War and war on terror whilst all the momentum built up by anarchists in the 90's was slowly diminishing with the movement shortly after going into terminal decline for several years. Meanwhile the Blair government was relentlessly attacking social security, housing, introducing ever more neoliberal reforms with barely a peep from the broad spectrum of the left including anarchists. There was more resistance to the pointless SOCPA regulations that there was the introduction of workfare or foundation hospitals, and much of the chat on here was people bemoaning, exactly as they are now, on the failure of the left and anarchist lifestylers to engage with class politics.

 

[danny la rouge]

inactive (mostly) old men whinging about how much better things were in their day

Not what I’m doing. I’ll leave aside the accusation of inactivity. That’s just throwing around shade, and not worth a response.

As for the second part of the phrase, I was (briefly) outlining a structural analysis of working class organisation since the 1920s to today. 1926 was not “my day”, and actually I don’t think everything was better then. Far from it. However, things were different.

Also, let me make it clear, I’m not “shouting at the London bookfair”. I’ve never been to it , I’m never likely to go, I have no idea what it was like last weekend. I have no idea what it was like in “my day”. (Incidentally, my day includes now, thanks).

I added my comments here because the conversation had moved onto the subject of the broader left and the working class. (At least the bits of the conversation I understood had. I think I was contributing to the improvement of the thread, which had frankly got a bit weird).

Maybe we could discuss it on another thread, but I don’t think there’s any harm moving to the more general. It might help move away from the slightly odd discussion of Freedom’s outgoing editor.

My intention was not to moan, but to say that we need to analyse the landscape that we are faced with, and fit our action to that analysis, rather than look at what we’re already doing and come up with an analysis (or rather rationalisation) that works to reassure us that the collection of banners in a corner of George Square is really what we should be doing.

 

[smokedout]

Not what I’m doing. I’ll leave aside the accusation of inactivity. That’s just throwing around shade, and not worth a response.

As for the second part of the phrase, I was (briefly) outlining a structural analysis of working class organisation since the 1920s to today. 1926 was not “my day”, and actually I don’t think everything was better then. Far from it. However, things were different.

Also, let me make it clear, I’m not “shouting at the London bookfair”. I’ve never been to it , I’m never likely to go, I have no idea what it was like last weekend. I have no idea what it was like in “my day”. (Incidentally, my day includes now, thanks).

I added my comments here because the conversation had moved onto the subject of the broader left and the working class. (At least the bits of the conversation I understood had. I think I was contributing to the improvement of the thread, which had frankly got a bit weird).

Maybe we could discuss it on another thread, but I don’t think there’s any harm moving to the more general. It might help move away from the slightly odd discussion of Freedom’s outgoing editor.

My intention was not to moan, but to say that we need to analyse the landscape that we are faced with, and fit our action to that analysis, rather than look at what we’re already doing and come up with an analysis (or rather rationalisation) that works to reassure us that the collection of banners in a corner of George Square is really what we should be doing.

My comments weren't aimed at you Danny but at the broader thrust of this thread and the criticisms of the bookfair. In fact I couldn't agree with your last paragraph more.

 

[TopCat]

My comments weren't aimed at you Danny but at the broader thrust of this thread and the criticisms of the bookfair. In fact I couldn't agree with your last paragraph more.

You are hardly a spring chook yerself to be fair. This criticism of old men having had their day is just shit though. Enough of us old men have been critical friends of the book fair for decades. Given what happened with the demise of the old book fair it's reasonable to continue to have a critical eye on the new organisers. The lack of transparency regarding allocating space was a definite mis step. Having no discussion regarding the war, especially given the positions taken up by many attending just emphasised the irrelevance.

 

[smokedout]

You are hardly a spring chook yerself to be fair. This criticism of old men having had their day is just shit though. Enough of us old men have been critical friends of the book fair for decades. Given what happened with the demise of the old book fair it's reasonable to continue to have a critical eye on the new organisers. The lack of transparency regarding allocating space was a definite mis step. Having no discussion regarding the war, especially given the positions taken up by many attending just emphasised the irrelevance.

I agree, I'm old, but not as old as some

But I do find it depressing how easily people slip into the whole kids are doing it wrong it was better in my day mindset though. I'm guilty of it myself and I think it's something we should be vigilant of because it pissed me off when the older generation did it to us and it no doubt pisses the younger generation off when we do it to them. The attitude of some on these threads has been a long way from critical friendship, which has to recognise mistakes might be made, that people are under resourced and have put in a lot of work, and that sometimes things such as the Ukraine workshop just don't come off for various reasons. We were lucky enough that not everything we did was being hyper scrutinised on the internet (until urban came along) and across social media, we got plenty wrong, there were plenty of fuck ups made, but they weren't endlessly debated online by those whose intentions often seem far from supportive.

 

[redsquirrel]

No not aimed at Danny at all, I agree with a lot of what he said. But I don't agree that things were much better 20 years ago despite the changing demographics on urban.

Well I'm not going to die in a ditch but I was not referring to "the left" but wider society in general - like Danny and I'm not saying things were necessarily "better", just that I think the trend of exiling class that was present 20 years ago has only gotten stronger.
Scabbing certainly occurred but I remember standing as a student on picket lines at my university and more than a few people looking sheepish as they crossed. Now plenty will cross without a second thought, they'll even insist how progressive they are, and in some ways they might be, the idea that scabbing is one of the most anti-social actions one can do does not even register with them.

 

[danny la rouge]

kids are doing it wrong it was better in my day mindset though.

Where is this being said, though? The only mention of “kids” was from the authors of that bizarre thesis, and even then it was their own claim. In fact there was some doubt cast on whether the claim was justified.

 

[Rob Ray]

The sort of collective class consciousness that was around even 20 years ago may have been very much weakened from the 45-75 period but to me it seems miles ahead of the present.

The trouble I think is that this is routinely linked to Failures Of The Left as a movement, rather than understood as being part of a long systemic decline which produces the movement. Like the New Left of the 60s-70s is routinely picked out by the crustier tankies as being the start of a decline and turn away from class struggle towards identity but there's little acknowledgement in there that this was symptom, not cause. Class struggle didn't magically disappear because students were having some funny ideas.

Take U75 for an example, 20 years ago most of the politics forum regulars - whether trots, tankies, anarchists or other - organised on the basis of class politics. Now that is a minority view.

Is it? Who here would you say isn't organising on the basis of class politics?

 

[danny la rouge]

Who here would you say isn't organising on the basis of class politics?

Are we really doing denunciations?

 

[Rob Ray]

Given what happened with the demise of the old book fair it's reasonable to continue to have a critical eye on the new organisers. The lack of transparency regarding allocating space was a definite mis step.

The new organisers were not responsible for the demise of the old bookfair though?

Having no discussion regarding the war, especially given the positions taken up by many attending just emphasised the irrelevance.

FYI: They actually did make an effort to get speakers from Eastern Europe but it didn't pan out. And frankly having a bunch of Westerners Having Opinions about wars in places they can barely find on maps, let alone influence in any serious way, doesn't sound like relevance to me. I'd certainly not boot a talk on workplace organising for it.

 

[redsquirrel]

The trouble I think is that this is routinely linked to Failures Of The Left as a movement, rather than understood as being part of a long systemic decline which produces the movement. Like the New Left of the 60s-70s is routinely picked out by the crustier tankies as being the start of a decline and turn away from class struggle towards identity but there's little acknowledgement in there that this was symptom, not cause. Class struggle didn't magically disappear because students were having some funny ideas.

I'd agree with this and I wasn't trying to link it to "the left", I was concurring with Danny that the wider explicit working class networks have continued to disappear.

Is it? Who here would you say isn't organising on the basis of class politics?

I'm not talking about this thread but the politics forums in general.
I don't know who the most regular posters are these days but a considerable number of U75 politics posters have explicitly argued for an Anti-Tory vote, a progressive politics rather than a class based one.
When SpineyNorman made some basic points about class struggle on the Ukraine thread the majority of replies did not even appear to comprehend what he was talking about, and at least one of those posters calls themselves a socialist.

 

[Rob Ray]

I don't think the forum in general is majority uninterested in class - Spymaster's hardly representative and that thread has a higher than usual number of people with liberal/right politics because of its subject matter. The "progressive voter" has always featured here, whether it's grown I couldn't say, definitely did during the Corbyn kerfuffle but can't say I've noticed a major sea change or owt.

I dunno I think there's a strong tendency for folks who've been around a while to look at the silly shit people say and think "everyone's getting stupider/losing their political nous" while forgetting the amount of absolute bollocks we talked and read back in the day, from which only a minority of intelligent thinking emerged which we think of as our generation's contribution.

 

[danny la rouge]

I don't think the forum in general is majority uninterested in class

There may be majority interest in class, but whenever class is discussed in U75 politics (and I don’t mean “these days”, I mean since I can remember), the general understanding is woeful. What class means, what class analysis is, what the implications are. Every time you have to explain it all again.

 

[smokedout]

Where is this being said, though? The only mention of “kids” was from the authors of that bizarre thesis, and even then it was their own claim. In fact there was some doubt cast on whether the claim was justified.

It's implicit in the whole debate both here and elsewhere, whether it's talking about how much better the old bookfair was, or the bemoaning of the lack of class politics compared to 20 years ago, or the snide comments upthread about how you could 'smell the liberalism' at this year's bookfair. I don't think it's fair, and I don't think it's true.

 

[redsquirrel]

The "progressive voter" has always featured here, whether it's grown I dunno, definitely did during the Corbyn kerfuffle but can't say I've noticed a major sea change or owt.

Well its a bit of a distraction but when I think back to when I joined the politics regulars were probably 25% anarchists, 25% trots, 25% unaligned class politicos, 25% liberal/right.
I don't think it is anything like that balance these days, or has been for a long time. I won't even say that less of a lefty ghetto is necessarily a bad thing but I think there's definitely been a change.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's implicit in the whole debate both here and elsewhere, whether it's talking about how much better the old bookfair was, or the bemoaning of the lack of class politics compared to 20 years ago, or the snide comments upthread about how you could 'smell the liberalism' at this year's bookfair. I don't think it's fair, and I don't think it's true.

Not all liberals are kids, are they?

 

[danny la rouge]

Anyway, if discussion is going back to the London Bookfair I’ll duck out. Like I say, I know nothing of those matters.

 

[smokedout]

Well its a bit of a distraction but when I think back to when I joined the politics regulars were probably 25% anarchists, 25% trots, 25% unaligned class politicos, 25% liberal/right.
I don't think it is anything like that balance these days, or has been for a long time. I won't even say that less of a lefty ghetto is necessarily a bad thing but I think there's definitely been a change.

It's changed beyond recognition, or at least p&p has, but I'm not convinced the changing demographics of urban tells us much about the wider demographics of society, I think it's more to do with the decline of message boards and the growth of social media.

 

[The39thStep]

The new organisers were not responsible for the demise of the old bookfair though?


FYI: They actually did make an effort to get speakers from Eastern Europe but it didn't pan out. And frankly having a bunch of Westerners Having Opinions about wars in places they can barely find on maps, let alone influence in any serious way, doesn't sound like relevance to me. I'd certainly not boot a talk on workplace organising for it.

Just as well there were no public meetings in the UK on the Russian Revolution when it occurred or the Spanish Civil War in the mid to late 1930s or meetings on Vietnam in the 1970s . Fuck knows what the Australian left and anarchists did with the events in 1968 probably couldn't even discuss it .

 

[danny la rouge]

Just as well there were no public meetings in the UK on the Russian Revolution when it occurred or the Spanish Civil War in the mid to late 1930s or meetings on Vietnam in the 1970s . Fuck knows what the Australian left and anarchists did with the events in 1968 probably couldn't even discuss it .

Good. They should stick to their lane.

 

[Rob Ray]

Just as well there were no public meetings in the UK on the Russian Revolution when it occurred or the Spanish Civil War in the mid to late 1930s or meetings on Vietnam in the 1970s . Fuck knows what the Australian left and anarchists did with the events in 1968 probably couldn't even discuss it .

Yes all entirely similar phenomena historically and practically .

 

[smokedout]

Just as well there were no public meetings in the UK on the Russian Revolution when it occurred or the Spanish Civil War in the mid to late 1930s or meetings on Vietnam in the 1970s . Fuck knows what the Australian left and anarchists did with the events in 1968 probably couldn't even discuss it .

I'm not sure who you'd ask from an anarchist perspective though. There aren't any groups or individuals that spring to mind who aren't from the region I'd be particularly interested in hearing discuss it. And the Skateboarders Against The War never turned up

 

[TopCat]

Just as well there were no public meetings in the UK on the Russian Revolution when it occurred or the Spanish Civil War in the mid to late 1930s or meetings on Vietnam in the 1970s . Fuck knows what the Australian left and anarchists did with the events in 1968 probably couldn't even discuss it .

Innit

 

[Rob Ray]

Meanwhile, a thread not too far away is on its 557th page. Which has been great for forming an international Brigade, shutting down British involvement in encouraging an imperial invasion and getting inspired by social revolts I'm sure.